- Biden heads to Mexico City this week for meeting with Mexican president, fentanyl on the agenda
- Timing of arrest of alleged cartel leader shows Mexico can do more when it wants to, analysts say.
- Analysts say Biden needs to push far more aggressively for action by Mexico on drugs and corruption.
Four days before President Joe Biden flies south to meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, authorities in the northwest state of Sinaloa arrested the son of the infamous drug cartel leader known as “El Chapo,” who is wanted by U.S. officials for contributing to the fentanyl epidemic that killed as many as 70,000 Americans last year.
At least 29 people, including 10 Mexican soldiers, were killed in shootouts with Sinaloa Cartel members during the operation to nab Ovidio Guzman on Thursday and fly him to Mexico City on a military plane.
Publicly, Mexican officials denied that the raid was timed to show Washington that its southern neighbor is an active partner in the politically fraught bilateral effort to staunch the cross-border flow of the lethal synthetic opioid.
More:Arrest of El Chapo’s son Ovidio Guzman throws Mexico into chaos ahead of Biden visit
But some current and former American counternarcotics officials are suspicious, noting that another “most wanted” drug cartel leader, Rafael Caro Quintero, was arrested in Sinaloa just days after Biden and Lopez Obrador met in Washington last July to discuss a range of issues, including a drug war that has tested…
